If you are talking about folk songs in English, the homepage http://abcnotation.com/ lists many sources, and also software. "ABC explorer" (presumably by French programmers) is just one of many software products.

I have no idea, Les. I am sure that we have many experts here whom you might lure by being more specific about your wishes.

Tune collections do not only differ by their comprehensiveness, but also by the quality of edition. Scholarly exactness sometimes conflicts with practicality for a particular purpose. Do you want new material for your instrumental "play-alongs"? The more details you give about your intentions, the more likely you will be helped by a specialist.

Thanks again Grishka. i feel I will find the answer here if their is one.

I am not looking for tunes as such- ABCexplorer for tunes is in great shape and I use it a lot - I have almost never failed to find ABC for jigs, reels, polkas and so on but songs are a different matter.

I have been searching for ABC or just sheet music for:

The Lancashire Lads, The Light Dragoon, The Glendalough Saint, The Workers Beer and a number of other quite well known folk songs with out any success.

I see, Les. Those of us who know where to find those songs might not have guessed from your thread title that you are looking for them. You can create a new thread "Where to find sheet music for some songs?", and list the titles. I bet you will get many answers. The songs may be in databases by different titles. If you only find (reasonably well-behaved) MIDI files, ABCexplorer (the software) can "import" them, i.e. convert them to ABC notation. If you have problems with that, Mudcatters can probably help you easily.

Mudcat's "Digital Tradition" seems to collect ABC versions of all folk songs in English or Irish language. If the lyrics are present but the tune is missing, it would certainly be welcome to be added (if sufficiently "original").

"The Glendalough Saint" can be found twice on YouTube. Most of us could easily transcribe either version to ABC, but a more scholarly approach would be preferable, using old sources. Copyrighted songs are a different topic.

To attract those in the know, you should ask for the thread title to be changed, particularly to drop "Tech" and "explorer". "Songs in ABC notation?" might do the trick.

It has thousands of tunes in ABCexplorer - we can simply copy the notation and paste it into our own copy of ABC and play the tune then export it as a pdf - a sheet of music - hence The Beech Tune Book and all that stuff on our website: